no camera= no blogging

my camera decided to checkout a few months ago and since then i've been left with nothing save for borrowing cameras from family members.
hence the lack of blogging.
recently i came across
the bless shop at midvalley megamall and semua house.

the one at midvalley is tucked behind "the machine shop" at south wing, not noticeable at all except to those going into the lift. nonetheless they're there for a good cause. it sells 2nd hand or some new things donated by people at very cheap prices and all proceeds go toward supporting the poor in Kuala Lumpur as well as a drug rehabilitation ministry by SIB.
do check it out! gavin and i went there and bought some nifty things, all a steal! I also donated some of my old clothes that i cant fit into anymore. they also take shoes, belts, bags, books, jewellery, scarves,toys, anything. watever you donate will be packed or hung up and displayed nicely.
so this is a chance for you to go through your clutter and try to declutter your life while supporting a good cause! also if you feel like shopping for bargains, this is the place!

too bad i dont have a camera or i'd have snapped photos of these shops. the one at semua house is bigger and more comfortable and feels like a real retail outlet. at midalley it feels more like some stand they set up in the empty waiting area by the lifts....

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Recycling and trying to reduce the usage of plastics is what gavin and I strive to go everyday although in malaysia it feels so futile, with every vendor at every stall being so eager to fill your life with plastic bags. yet we press on! I want to encourage all of you to recycle and reduce your waste! especially plastics because

"They clutter landfills. They flap from trees. They float in the breeze. They clog roadside drains. They drift on the high seas. They fill sea turtle bellies.......Once in the environment, it takes months to hundreds of years for plastic bags to breakdown. As they decompose, tiny toxic bits seep into soils, lakes, rivers, and the oceans"

on our cruise earlier this month we loved looking out the deck for jellyfish and we saw many of them. the ones near penang had long streamers and floated around like ghosts. the ones nearer to port klang were round like mushrooms and glowed a ghostly green. but there were a few times when we THOUGHT we saw a jellyfish but it was actually a plastic bag! imagine what would happen to a turtle if they saw it? that's how a lotta turtles die, from eating what they thought was a jellyfish!

this other article is more sobering, asserting that creating the plastic itself as already the most hazardous thing and no matter what you try to do to recyle or reuse it, the damage has been done so the only way is stop using it altogether.

there're some easy ways to do this. we keep a very big box at the back of the kitchen and put all our plastic bottles and tubs in there. all the soft drink bottles, contact lens solution bottles, shower gels bottles, anything plastic - go into there. then when it's full we drop it off at the recycling centre in SS17. we have another bag for tin cans, and one for glass. it doesn't take that much effort.

another way to reduce the use of plastic is by bringing your own canvas bags when you go shopping, even to pasar malams. most places would allow you to do this, except mydin which to me is the most environmentally unfriendly hypermarket EVER!! they put every single item you buy into a plastic bag, even a thumb sized piece of ginger!! and they wouldn't let us bring in your canvas bags. horrible! but well, even if you don't have a canvas bag, you can just bring your own plastic bags. every home has too many plastic bags everywhere, so just bring your own when you go shopping so that you dont have to use more.

there! i hope this helped a little bit. if you want to reduce production of plastics, stop buying soft drinks {hehe] it'll be good for you and the environment.
also, only buy what you need. I find that we have too much "stuff" that we don't use. hence my cleaning up of my clutter and trying to donate it to a good cause. I will expound on that more soon, till then,

reuse, reduce, recycle!